


Paranoia In B Major

by StuckyandStarWars



Series: Road Trip [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Adjusting to being seprated, Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Johnny doesn't like being alone at ALL, Johnny has his body back, Nightmares, No explicit romance but Johnny is pretty obviously in love, Road trip across the badlands with v and johnny, Seperation Anxiety, Soft Johnny Silverhand, V has to put up with Johnny's bullshit but it's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:54:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28694265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyandStarWars/pseuds/StuckyandStarWars
Summary: Being shoved into someone's brain, or having someone shoved into yours, is hard. Being separated from that person is even harder.With paranoia on my heelsWill you love me stillWhen we awake and you find that the sanity is gone from my eyes?
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand & V
Series: Road Trip [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154906
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	Paranoia In B Major

**Author's Note:**

> Not based on Paranoia In B Major, but it's really fitting to Johnny. I hope you enjoy this, I had to go back and watch the oil field grave scene to get his sad voice right and DID make myself cry again.

V was worried about Johnny. Hell, when was she not? She had prepared herself to take care of him while they were waiting for him to come out of his coma and knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He hadn’t even been back in his body for a full month and they were out of Night City. Panam had offered to let them ride with the Aldecaldos of course. Part of V wanted to, wanted to be a nomad, be free out there in the wild, but that wouldn’t have been good for her or Johnny. They took a car Saul offered- something big that could handle the badlands- said farewell to all V’s friends, and got the hell out of dodge. Judy had also offered to help. As bad as V felt turning her down she knew Johnny well enough to know it was better for them to be alone right now. He was going to have a lot of issues that anyone but V would have trouble dealing with.

He was asleep right now, muttering something under his breath, and she was driving. They had been on the road for a week and were headed towards the border of the New United States, though not in a straight line. They weren’t really sure what they were going to do once they got there. It wasn’t like the long-dead rockerboy Robert John Linder had any official paperwork. It was something they had to talk about when he woke up. 

But she was worried about him. This was a lot for a guy to deal with, and he was being very closed off. She was used to him benign completely transparent with her because he had no other choice and had hoped that wouldn’t change once they were two separate people. She was trying to tell him everything to coax him to do the same. It wasn’t working, but she still had time.

“V,” Johnny said. Huh, he hadn’t fallen asleep all that long ago.

“Mornin’. Just in time for the sunrise.” She kept her eyes on the road.

“V,” He said again, more strained. “N...no-”

_ Fuck _ she thought, sparing him a glance.  _ Nightmare. _

“Johnny,” She reached over and grabbed his arm, taking her foot off of the gas and slowly breaking. “Hey, wake up.”

He didn’t, just started cursing and muttering something she couldn’t quite hear. This was strange. She had woken him out of nightmares before, but there hadn’t been one where he addressed her specifically. His face usually twisted into anger, but he looked scared. He was also getting louder. V threw the car into park and reached across to shake him awake, but he jolted upward before she could. Johnny was panting, shaking, and in a worse state than V had ever seen him. Save maybe for when he had woken up in his body again for the first time. He took one glance at the surroundings then opened the car door and stumbled out into the early morning light. 

“Johnny!” She called, unbuckling her seatbelt and following him into the desert. 

He walked quite far from the car, if you could call barely staying on his feet walking, then disappeared out of sight behind a large rock. V followed at a jog. She found him sitting in the sand against the rock, smoke tucked firmly between his teeth. His Hair was wild- they had been letting it get way too long- and his eyes were focused on something neither of them could see. 

“Johnny-”

“I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” He was certainly not fine. She could hear tremors in his voice that he always had under control after nightmares “I’ll get over it.”

She sat in the sand in front of him. “Which one?”

Johnny just shook his head and took a long drag of his cigarette. He had told her all of his reoccurring nightmares. The deep, empty, crushing darkness of Mikoshi. Seeing Alt die over and over again in different ways. Memories from the war that had been plaguing him long before they met. The fact he wasn’t telling her this one just made her worry more. She didn’t want to push him this early, so they sat. 

“You should- We shouldn’t leave the car alone.” He spoke up eventually, his voice tired but less shaky. 

“It’s not that far away, it’ll be fine.” Even so she glanced out from around the rock. “It’s fine.”

“I just need a moment.” He brought one hand to his hair and looked at her with an expectant glare. 

“Hey, talk to me, would you? I can’t help if I don’t know what the dream was-”

“Jesus fuck, I don’t need coddling! can you fucking leave me alone?”

She waited for a few seconds, wanting him to calm down and apologize, but he didn’t. When he turned and looked away V got up and went back to the car. She should stay with him, make him talk to her, but part of her was angry enough that she felt like she should get in the car and drive away.

_ No, what kind of a fucking friend are you _ .  _ You knew this was going to be hard _ . She scolded herself as she pushed up onto the hood of the car. All she could do was give him space right now.

About five minutes later he emerged from behind the rock, still smoking, and walked back to the car. He was still moving slow but he didn’t seem to be shaking as bad anymore. God, what dream could fuck him up that bad? When they had been staying at V’s apartment all she needed to do was wake him up and get him something to drink, let him talk or sit in silence, and every other nightmare he had woken from in the car just required her to talk about something until he calmed down. This was different. Whatever it was, she didn’t know what she could do for him, and she didn’t want him to shut her out. Nancy had told her how hard it was to keep him around, either because he pushed everyone so far away that they just left or because he got too overwhelmed himself. How badly Johnny always wanted to get up and run from anything, either physically or mentally. 

_ “He’ll drown it in anything he can get his hands on if you’re not careful. Try not to leave when he needs you, but don’t stand too close. He’s a finicky guy, V. Good luck.” _

Nancy was the only other person from Samurai who knew about Johnny’s resurrection, and only because she had started digging into Arasaka’s collapse. It was better to tell her and ask her to only tell part of the truth than have her uncover the whole thing alone. Plus she seemed to be the only stable person who was still willing to talk to V about Johnny (or talk to V at all). 

“You got a smoke?” Johnny asked as he approached, tossing the one he had just finished into the dirt.

“No,” She stood. “We’ll have to pick up some when we see a shop. Do you want to eat breakfast out here or on the road?”

“I want to get out of this fucking dusty hellscape. Maybe see some real trees.” he kicked a small Joshua Tree with hatred that probably wasn’t aimed at it. “Want me to drive? You’ve been behind the wheel a while.”

She glanced at his ‘ganic hand. “And you’ve still got tremors. I’ll be fine drivin’ a while longer.”

Johnny cursed and shoved his hand into his jeans pocket, eyes trained on the pebbles. He seemed to think they were doing fine not mentioning it. He climbed into the passenger side and she went around to the wheel, asking him to fish some scop out of the bag at his feet. By the time she had her seatbelt on there was a burger flavored combination of chemicals on the dash. He was already digging into his own. The car was still running, so all Johnny had to do was turn on the radio and they were ready to go.

\--

The sun was almost at its peak by the time they found a rest stop. It was an old, shitty motel, but it sold smokes and food, so it was perfect. 

“Hey,” V called, finding Johnny sitting on a bench not far from their ride. 

“Hey. Who was that?” He gestured to the guy she had been talking to across the parking lot. 

“A client. Says he doesn’t do fixers but needs something done.”

“You’re gonna take a job from some rando in the parking lot of a motel we don’t even know the name of?”

“Go look at the eddies in the car and tell me we don’t need it. Besides, he’s paying in cash.”

“This stinks. Real bad.”

“Half now and half after.” She handed him her holo, letting him read the deal.

“Fuck, really?” He skimmed it. “Still smells, but that’s a good deal.”

The job was simple. Break into an abandoned gas station not far off, steal some documents and a laptop, then get it back to him. Johnny was right, the job stunk of foul play and sketchy shit, but he had agreed to pay her one thousand now and one thousand later, plus a bonus if she didn’t trip the alarm. In their situation that was a lot of cash. Preparations for fighting all of Arasaka and restoring Johnny to his body had not been cheap. Paying Vik and Judy to transfer him over and keep him alive left them with only a few hundred. This job would let V sleep easier. 

\---

Johnny shouldn’t have let V go alone. It was against all of his better judgment. And now it had been almost two hours, she shouldn’t have been gone for two hours. He had abandoned the room forty-five minutes ago when he realized he was going to make the place smell like a drug den if he smoked anymore cigarettes, and he couldn’t stop smoking right now. He’d gotten through almost an entire pack in the time V had been gone and it wasn’t doing anything but giving him a worse headache. 

Being this worried was unlike him. V was a big girl, she could handle herself. He had seen her in action hundreds of times. She wasn’t about to slip up just because Johnny wasn’t stuck in her head. He wanted to pin his fears on his dream from that morning, but the truth was he had been noticing anxiety any time he couldn’t see V. This was the longest they had ever been apart while he was lucid. He felt fucking stupid. He could do just fine without her, she could do just fine without him… but someday he was going to have to admit whatever attachment they had formed while he was quite literally dependent on her life was still ingrained in his psyche. It was the same with the feeling of Mikoshi. He couldn’t stand being underground or god forbid underwater because it felt too much like that horrible repressive weight of being a code in nothingness.

He lit another smoke.

Fuck, he’d always had PTSD. Abusive household, war, and the shit you see in the streets of Night City are enough to permanently traumatize someone separately. Add being turned into code, dying, becoming one with another person, being separated from that person, and being shoved back into your body and he was about as fucked up as a person could get. 

_ You know, maybe she took the downpayment and ran. You’ve been pushing her away. _

He stood up, deciding he couldn’t just wallow in self-hatred and self-pity. Some poor kid on a beat-up bike had just pulled up and Johnny was about to ruin his night. He crossed the parking lot to the ride before the kid had fully gotten off. In one quick motion, he pulled his Malorian out of the back of his pants and pointed it at the back of the boy’s head.

“Get off and give me the key.”

“Fuck dude- Okay- calm down-” His hands flew into the air. 

“Keys. Don’t make me ask again.”

Right as the kid finished fishing the keys out of his pockets Johnny heard a familiar voice and felt that dumb fucking wave of relief.

“Johnny? What the fuck are you doing?”

He lowered the gun to his side and turned around. “Fuck, V. Two hours? That job took you two hours?” She had pulled up and was now getting out of their car, looking exasperated. 

“I ran into some shit. I leave you alone for two hours and you're hijacking this kid’s bike?” She looked at the kid. “Don’t fuckin’ worry about this gonk. Get outta here.”

“I was gonna come to save your stupid ass and then return his bike. It’s not like we have any use for the thing.”

“I didn’t need saving. I’m fine.”

“Your friend is a psycho, miss.”

“Fuck, kid, I’m still holding the gun! Didn’t she just tell you to delta the  _ fuck _ outta here?” He left as quickly as he could after that, but V didn’t exactly look happy. “Obviously you’re not in trouble, but if you had been you would have been thanking me.”

“For holding a gun to a guy’s head and stealing his bike.”

He sighed and tucked the gun back into his waistband. Now that she was back, now that he wasn’t sick with anxiety, he felt pretty stupid.

“Let’s just get outta here,” he grumbled, walking over to the driver's side door. “Give that creep the goods, get the eddies, and let’s go.”

He watched her disappear around the back of the motel and started cursing under his breath. That had been a gonk move. He couldn’t tell if V was actually pissed or just exasperated. He tuned the radio to any station he could find that sounded even remotely like rock. It was shitty, but at least it was noise. Eventually, V appeared from behind the building and got into the passenger seat, kicked up her feet on the dash, and told him to hit it. She didn’t seem all that pissed anymore. Johnny guessed the heavy wad of eddies she just got was helping her mood. 

About an hour later V turned down the radio and squinted at Johnny.

“What?” he asked after she stared for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Something on my face?”

“Why did you want that kid’s bike?”

Maybe she was mad. “I knew where you were and you were gone for too long.”  _ You scared me _

“Really? That’s it.  _ You  _ were worried about me. You weren't trying to dip.”

That hurt. Did she really think he would just up and leave like that? “No, I wasn’t fucking ghosting.”

“You were so worried about me that you were gonna steal some random kid’s motorcycle? That’s flattering.” He could see her small grin out of the corner of his eye.

Johnny sighed. He knew she was just messing with him, and he wanted to tease her right back, sat that trying to get anywhere out here without those eddies would end up with him dead, but when he glanced in her direction all he could see was her lifeless body from his dream.

“Johnny? You okay?” he must have been quiet for too long. “Hey, I didn’t actually think you were going to leave.”

“No, ‘s not about that.”

“Your nightmare?” Fuck, she was smart. “Gonna tell me what it was?”

He didn’t want to do this, but he knew he needed to keep her within arm's reach. He didn’t know what he would do if he fucked this up too. He pulled the last smoke out of the pack and cracked the window, but didn’t light it just yet.

“They found us,” he started, looking straight ahead. “They had something in my body they could use to track us. We put up a fight but they had their whole fuckin’ arsenal. They didn’t kill me, wanted me back in- in Mikoshi, but they…”

His knuckles were white from how hard he was gripping the wheel. This felt so stupid, it was just a dream. A dream that happened hours ago. And yet his throat was dry and his gut was churning. V didn’t press, seeming to understand what the rest of the dream was, she just put her hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him.

“Arasaka’s gone. Mikoshi is destroyed. They won’t find us out here.”

“I know. It was just a dream.”

“I don’t understand… why’d this one fuck you up so bad? Usually, all it takes is a quick conversation and some breakfast and you’re alright.”

_ Because it was you  _ was the first thought to pop into his mind.  _ It wasn’t me, or Alt, or my friends in the trenches. It was you _ .

“I dunno.” Is what he said. “Maybe ‘cause my usual dreams are things that have already happened.”  _ And this is something I’m terrified of. _

He wanted to get out of this car. Get away. Run, hide, calm down, assume his usual persona. This was always so difficult for him. Part of him wanted to tell V everything, tell her exactly how terrified he was when she wasn’t within eyesight, tell her that he had never felt like this towards anyone. Never been so connected. 

“You scare me when you shut me out.” He had picked up on her little scheme to share all of her feelings in an attempt to get him to share his.

“You scare me when you- when you’re not around.” 

Johnny didn’t say it, but he was grateful she didn’t remove her hand from his shoulder. They didn’t speak for a little while longer, V obviously wanted to take it slow, but eventually, Johnny worked up the nerve to tell her more.

“I don’t wanna lose you. I’ve lost everyone-  _ everyone _ else, all my own fault.”

“Johnny, they weren’t-”

“No, they were. You didn’t know me then, I was a complete fucking cunt. You might have seen my memories but as Alt said, those are biased. How I saw the situation. Kerry, Alt, Rouge, everyone else I’ve ever known. I already told you they couldn’t stand to be around me. But I dunno... I dunno how to explain it with you.”

“Don’t have to.” She said. “Don’t forget that connection we had went both ways. I still wake up scared when I can’t feel you in my head.”

That was similar, but not the same. Johnny had lived lonely, died alone, and been locked in the loneliest form of solitary confinement for fifty-four years. Never been as close to someone as he was to V. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, especially if it was his own fault. 

But he wasn't quite ready to tell V all of that. “Thanks. For not leavin’ as soon as I was able to walk and talk again. Hell, thanks for not just taking the cure to your death and wiping me forever.”

“Hey, you’re my friend. You’re my family, or closest I’ll have to it now. I couldn’t let you die and there’s no way in hell I was gonna walk out on you.”

They needed to stop this conversation or Johnny was gonna make use of his recently restored tear ducts. He cleared his throat. “So. What did you run into on that job that took you two fuckin hours?”

“Fuck, okay.” She laughed, breaking the fog that had settled in the car. “When I got there, not only was the gas station not abandoned, it was a fucking Millitech transport check…”

**Author's Note:**

> Wasn't exactly sure how to end but thank you for reading!


End file.
